As Rome continued to grow taller she needed more food and water, bigger blankets, and a bigger shelter to survive. Soon not even the advertising fees from the billboards and Facepage’s wealth were enough. Her father was forced to offer more advertising spaceon his website, so that eventually there were so many pop-ups and jarring banners people began to quit using it. Personally, I still kept an account up but I only went to glance at Rome’s status occasionally. A new internet fad was quickly replacing social networking sites as well. The fantasy of having hundreds of friends that you only vaguely knew was replaced by having hundreds of people that vaguely had similar interests as you. By using cell phones as social networking devices, they would ring whenever someone who had similar interests as someone else entered the room. Facepage, faced with nearly empty bank accounts and an evergrowing daughter, finally broke down and turned to alcoholism. The media turned their attention away from Rome long enough to see a few drunken rants from the man who had defended his own daughter through it all. Finally, he filed for bankruptcy after the legal fees for Rome’s initial lawsuit were demanded (they had still lost) and abandoned Rome. At this point, Rome had few options. Countless medical schools and universities were willing to offer her help in exchange for rights to study her both for her condition and anatomical reasons. But none of them could bear the burden financially to feed her for more than a day or two. There were several pleas for the government to step in and for a moment it looked like it might happen. An incredible industry had grown around simply feeding Rome and their lobbyists wielded significant influence in Washington. Unfortunately, the nation had divided on whether they were obliged to pay for a thirty-five foot tall woman. “Let her fend for herself, that’s what I say. I didn’t make her grow so big,” said one columnist whose bitching about the gigantic celebrity had made her famous. It almost looked as if people were going to just let Rome starve.
